Politics
The Amazing Adventures of Hannah the Plumber
Hello trees, hello sky – hello, Hannah Spencer. All dressed up like a daffodil, the recently elected Green MP looks like she’s off to present a CBeebies show, and is apparently so wholesome that she makes Julie Andrews look like Julie Burchill. How extremely pleased the Greens must have been when she won the Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester last month – proof at last that they’re not all mad and / or scary. But it’s nice to find out that she’s not perfect, and can fall prey to the sin of pride like so many of us. She told the Manchester Evening News recently: ‘I feel like I’ve already done more in the last two weeks, genuinely, than some MPs will do in six months or a year.’
Steady on, Mary Sue! These achievements, it seems, include delivering her maiden speech (to a Commons so sparsely attended that it resembled a Labour Party disco), in which she came out with salt-of-the-earthisms such as, ‘[W]here I’m from, we’re taught to look after each other’ and to ‘stick up for each other’. (This was only slightly undermined by the fact that Spencer once wrote in 2021 on Mumsnet that she was ‘glad’ to leave the area as it was full of ‘money-laundering takeaways’, according to the Telegraph.) ‘It’s in our blood and in our bones’, she told parliament, ‘we see each other as human’. Human as opposed to what – plant-pot holders? I’m always a bit suspicious of people claiming that a character trait is part of their actual bodily self – rather too blood-and-soil for my liking.
She then went all teary when reading out the names of women who allegedly inspired her (I noted that none of them had penises), before recovering and practically hugging herself with glee at, she says, the girls who went to school on International Women’s Day dressed as ‘Hannah the Plumber’ with ‘trademark hair’. Bit heteronormative – couldn’t they have dressed up as Eddie Izzard? And then there was the predictable shout out to ‘trans siblings’ and ‘Muslims’, but for some reason not to Muslim trans siblings.
In previous speeches, she has quoted children who have apparently said wise things to her – usually a sure sign of a phoney. This includes one child in her by-election acceptance speech, to whom she allegedly answered:
‘I promised you I would try and improve the world you are growing up in. I told you I am not perfect, but that I always try my best. I always try and do the right thing.’
In her Commons maiden speech, we got a long list of people who she was representing in parliament, only leaving out the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, for some reason. What did Uncle Tom Cobley ever do to her, to be so cruelly snubbed? ‘Thank you for putting your faith in this plumber’, she ended.
There’s been no shortage of praise for Spencer from all the usual suspects. The Guardian called the speech she made after her by-election victory ‘endearingly down to earth’ and ‘an object lesson in grace’. This is what we’ve come to expect from a newspaper that has such a tin ear that it recently ran a column describing a business founded by a British Jew having all its windows smashed as a harmless gesture of solidarity with Gaza. Never heard of Kristallnacht, you Hamas-humping clowns?
What else has the busy bee Hannah Spencer been up to in two weeks that her co-workers couldn’t do in a year? Well, she witnessed her first PMQs and called them a ‘pantomime’, whereas to anyone who appreciates democracy, they’re one of the most vital (and entertaining) features of it:
‘Even though I knew what it was going to be like, I think it’s actually worse than I was expecting. That whole façade that people put on, this theatre of playing a certain way. That’s not what we’re there for. We’re there because people have elected us to do the things that we told them.’
This, from a woman who belongs to the same party as Mothin Ali, who once hounded a local rabbi into hiding, and who, when he was elected to Leeds City Council in 2024, stood in front of a Palestinian flag shrieking:
‘We will not be silenced. We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine. Allahu Akbar!’
Was this pathetic performance a ‘pantomime’, too? Or was it sinister, rather than silly? Either way, that she can criticise PMQs while not raising a peep about this does confirm the suspicion that the lethal teaming of the silly and the sinister is currently happening in the Green Party above all other places.
In her exciting first fortnight as a right-proper politician, lend-a-hand Hannah also found herself given a police escort after ‘scuffles’ broke out at an ‘anti-racism’ event in Manchester at which she had been emoting. As the Manchester Evening News had it, she said becoming an MP has changed the way she thinks about ‘personal safety’: ‘There’s a strange feeling about knowing the things I took for granted before’, she explained. ‘Being able to feel safe – safe enough – when I was walking around, I just can’t do any more. That’s really hard.’ Sensitive Hannah felt ‘real sadness’ to see how ‘angry’ people had become – including those who accused her of lying about being a plumber, a piece of doubtlessly ‘fake news’ which at one point included the naughty altering of her Wikipedia page to inform us that she was born in Kensington and grew up riding ponies.
It’s been erased now, thank goodness, but the question mark over Hannah’s social origins just won’t go away. Maybe because, generally, working-class girls don’t tend to be selected by the Guardian as among the ‘best-dressed of the fest’ at Glastonbury, for the reason that most working-class people would never think it a hoot to wallow in their own filth. It’s the white middle and upper classes who go in for that kind of lark.
Spencer seems to think that if only the media could stop telling fibs, we’d all be joining hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ in Urdu. ‘Once upon a time we’d have been kids that played with each other’, she said in her Commons speech: ‘We’re all human, but some people have been exposed to a lot of misinformation and it’s making them really angry.’ Still, she’ll be struggling bravely on. ‘Just like I’ve given the energy to other jobs I’ve done – because I care about it and I want to get the work done – I’ll do that here’, she opined, upper lip barely quivering.
It’s fascinating the way that questions about Spencer’s social background won’t go away – and, I think, quite healthy, as it’s always good to be vocal when one smells a rat, even when the plumber’s already called and assured us there’s nothing to see here. The fascinating self-described ‘working-class academic’ Lisa Mckenzie still maintains that Spencer is not of the proletarian blood royale, despite the fact that she, until recently, got her hands dirty in a way that Mckenzie and indeed myself do not. I’m of the opinion that a great part of being working-class is having very low or no expectations. My parents did their best to remove my ambition from me, and they were lovely people. They just didn’t want me to get hurt. Growing up with ‘a thousand paper cuts every day’, as Mckenzie strikingly describes it. When I look at Spencer, I don’t get that feeling.
Still, it’s always nice to see a youngster living their dream, and I’m sure that Hannah’s never ridden a pony in her life, unless it was a pit-pony her dad brought home from t’mines and which she, like the earth-angel she is, nursed back to life. Let us mock no more at the fact that she keeps greyhounds – a fashion model’s idea of whippets. And let us snipe no longer that, if indeed she is the salt of the earth, it’s that pink Himalayan stuff that costs a fortune.
Let’s put carping aside and welcome to the bold, believable, real-life roster of Strong Female Role Models, from Rosie the Riveter to Dora the Explorer and now Hannah the Plumber. Even if she gets chucked out at the next election, think what a cracking CBeebies show it’ll make!
Julie Burchill is a spiked columnist. Follow her Substack, ‘Notes from the Naughty Step’, here.
With hindsight, it was clear that something was wrong in Canterbury at least a couple of days before the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) notified the public of a meningitis outbreak. Walking through the city centre on Friday evening, I noticed the pubs and restaurants that would normally be teeming with students were standing largely empty. Far from its usual raucousness, Canterbury High Street was eerily quiet.
It was 48 hours later that news broke of the tragic deaths of a pupil from a nearby school and a student at the University of Kent, from what has now been identified as meningitis B. Fifteen people remain severely ill in hospital. This is an incredibly difficult time for those mourning the loss of a relative or friend, worried about those still unwell, or concerned that they are at risk of infection.
Meningitis needs to be treated with the utmost seriousness. Amid concern that the UKHSA was too slow in alerting the public, health officials spent yesterday tracing those who may have come into contact with the disease and issuing precautionary antibiotics to those at risk. This was a sensible response to a worrying situation.
But elsewhere, the response to Canterbury’s meningitis outbreak has been far from rational. ‘TERROR ON CAMPUS’ screams the headline in today’s Daily Mirror. ‘Killer meningitis outbreak’, warns Channel 4 News. Images have been published of paramedics in hazmat suits wheeling a sick student out of university accommodation and into the back of a waiting ambulance – even though this is absolutely not happening routinely.
As I walked through the University of Kent’s grounds yesterday, it wasn’t petrified students I noticed, but journalists intent on whipping up hysteria. National camera crews had assembled at dawn, and by midday, helicopters were circling my house, capturing aerial footage of students queuing for antibiotics. Yet reporters, vox-popping teenagers and seemingly desperate for hysteria, were, at least at first, often met with boredom and resignation. It was only as the day wore on that ‘fear and panic’ began to be recorded.
Some journalists seem to go beyond describing what’s happening in Canterbury in their bid to summon a medical emergency, with the media at the centre of the action. This can have dangerous and unintended consequences. For example, reports suggest that some scared students have now returned to their family homes, when they may have been far better off staying put to avoid spreading the infection. Indeed, the first case outside of Kent was recorded in London earlier today, leading health officials to declare the outbreak a ‘national incident’. French officials have also reported a case involving a Kent University student.
‘Students queue in “Covid-esque” scenes’, claimed the Independent, turning to a comparison being drawn in much of meningitis reporting. Indeed, it soon became apparent that it wasn’t just journalists drawing Covid parallels. ‘Lockdown’ now provides the script for responding to serious illness. In Canterbury this week, people have all too readily returned to once-familiar routines with university exams moved online, masked-up students queuing for medication, and pubs falling silent.
What’s troubling is not just the readiness with which people retreat from social life, but that Covid comparisons fail to take into account the specific nature of meningitis and the way it is transmitted. Unlike Covid, meningitis B spreads through close and direct contact with an infected person through kissing, sneezing, and sharing drinks or cutlery. It is, thankfully, far less contagious than Covid – although this is not obvious from much of the reporting.
The ease with which lockdown routines are being revived means that students queuing for antibiotics at the University of Kent are being given masks, which likely serve little purpose, only to be spotted sharing vapes, which is far riskier than simply lining up outside in the fresh air.
Another unhelpful hangover from the Covid years is the way disease becomes incorporated into the culture war. Within minutes of footage of students queuing beginning to circulate, vaccinations became a topic of discussion once more. On one side, students were condemned for not having been vaccinated against meningitis, while others pointed out that repeated lockdowns and school closures meant that entire cohorts of teenagers missed out on routine vaccinations that would normally have been administered during the school day. Some note that vaccines are less effective against meningitis B, the particular strain thought to be spreading in Canterbury, while others argue that only a lack of NHS funding prevents this specific vaccine from being issued more widely.
Right now, Kent’s meningitis outbreak has led to the tragic loss of two young lives. There is a worrying wait for news of those who are still gravely ill. But we cannot afford to let a more generalised media hysteria, or a desire to replay an old Covid script, make this serious situation far worse than it already is.
Over the past week or so, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d stepped into a time machine and been transported back to March 2025. Cast your mind back: Adolescence had just dropped on Netflix, and a moral panic was starting to set in about white working-class boys. Lurking in the background of the four-part series, which follows the arrest of a teenage boy accused of stabbing his female classmate to death, was the pernicious influence of Andrew Tate and the so-called manosphere in which he operates. Blaming the worst of all crimes on this self-proclaimed ‘misogynist’ influencer went down a storm at the time.
The Guardian hailed Adolescence as the ‘closest thing to TV perfection in decades’, while the Independent described its exploration of the ‘pernicious influence of the manosphere’ as ‘harrowing but compelling’. UK prime minister Keir Starmer wanted it to be shown in every British secondary school.
Exactly one year on, Louis Theroux’s latest documentary has once again put the manosphere under the microscope. The current moment feels like déjà-vu or, as Tate might say, a ‘glitch in the matrix’, because Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere also provides a superficial insight into a complex problem.
That hasn’t stopped critics from falling over themselves to praise the zany documentarian’s deep dive into the online world of hypermasculine content creators. Bragging about ‘one-way’ monogamy and the importance of material wealth above all else, these rage-baiting clowns have also sent celebrities into a tizzy. Everyone from Simon Cowell’s wife to Made in Chelsea’s Spencer Matthews – the same Spencer Matthews who gained notoriety as the bad-boy womaniser on the reality show – took to Instagram shortly after the credits rolled to issue a casting call for ‘better role models’ in society.
While documentaries like Inside the Manosphere offer celebrities an opportunity to declare to the world which way their moral compass points and to atone for past sins, they ultimately fail to grapple with why figures like Tate have such a hold on young boys.
Theroux does, at one point, attempt to unpack what motivates the main protagonists in this machismo movement. But he doesn’t get very far. Delving into the difficult ‘origin story’ of controversial streamer HSTikkyTokky (real name Harrison Sullivan), Theroux observes that ‘carrying the wounds of childhood can project trauma into the wider world’. Sullivan, we learn, was abandoned by his father.
It is to some extent understandable that Theroux ducked the question of why so many men find the ‘manosphere’ compelling. Honest answers may prove radioactive. But it is surely the most important question, and certainly would have led to far more interesting conversations, rather than shallow psychologising about the ‘wounds of childhood’.
For starters, what did the advent of the pill mean for gender relations? Did the #MeToo movement go too far? How about wokeism in general? Unintended consequences lurk everywhere, from sexual ethics to feminism.
And you don’t have to search hard to find them. The contradictions inherent in being a modern man are easily found on dating apps, where women routinely specify that they are seeking a ‘real man’ who is both ‘emotionally aware’ and ‘assertive’. It should be possible to traverse this thorny terrain without endorsing misogyny. In fact, dodging the hard questions in favour of platitudes will only reinforce the masculinity crisis.
The Tates of this world have gone where others fear to tread. That they have gone too far, and ended up in a sexist abyss, should not prevent the rest of us from asking whether the long assault on manhood has been a good thing. The old Louis Theroux would have asked these questions, and given us a much better documentary as a result.
Adam Chapman is a writer and editor.
A senior Taliban official has said that Pakistan killed 408 people in an airstrike which targeted a drug rehab clinic in Kabul. The strike landed at 9pm on 16 March, allegedly wounded over 200, in addition to those killed. A Pakistani official said they had only targeted ‘military’ and ‘terrorist’ infrastructure.
Taliban spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat posted on X:
The Pakistani military regime carried out an airstrike at approximately 9:00 PM this evening on the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital, a 2,000-bed facility dedicated to the treatment of drug addiction. As a result of the attack, large sections of the hospital have been destroyed, and there are serious concerns about a high number of casualties.
Unfortunately, the death toll has so far reached 400, while around 250 others have been reported injured. Rescue teams are currently at the scene working to control the fire and recover the remaining bodies of the victims.
The information minister of Pakistan, Attaullah Tarar, shared the following details:
✅ 17 March 2026
✅ Pakistan’s Armed Forces successfully carried out precision airstrikes on the night of 16 March as a part of Operation Ghazab Lil Haq, targeting Afghan Taliban regime terrorism sponsoring military installations in Kabul and Nangarhar.
✅ Technical support… pic.twitter.com/b8YJkGC0cv
— Attaullah Tarar (@TararAttaullah) March 16, 2026
Doomsday scenes
He and his 25 roommates had gathered in their dormitory after prayers when the attack occurred. He was the only survivor among them.
many young people under treatment lived in large containers on the campus and very few survived the strike…It was extremely terrifying. Those who survived were the ones whose rooms were not destroyed and were fortunate. But the places where the bombs were dropped, everyone there was killed.
Now we have come again … there are still bodies under the rubble.
Border tensions between the two countries, building for several months, have turned into a hot war.
Afghanistan-Pakistan border war
Fighting between the formerly US-occupied nation and Pakistan (itself a US partner) kicked off in February. At the time, the Canary reported how Pakistani officials were already calling the confrontation an ‘open war’ back in late February.
In an explainer Reuters said:
Allies-turned-foes Pakistan and Afghanistan’s worst fighting in years erupted last month, with Pakistani air strikes inside Afghanistan that Islamabad said targeted militant strongholds.
Afghanistan called the strikes a violation of its sovereignty that targeted civilians, and launched retaliatory operations.
Over the last three weeks, both countries have launched air and drone strikes against each other and also engaged in ground firing across their 2,600-km (1,600-mile) border, with each claiming to have inflicted heavy damage and killed hundreds of opposition troops, without providing evidence.
Featured image via X/Canary
The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Pat McFadden couldn’t pass up the opportunity to demonise disabled benefit claimants whilst giving a speech announcing the Youth Employment Grant.
McFadden was at Walthamstow Forest College announcing that the DWP would give businesses 3 grand to trap kids in shit jobs. But he, of course, couldn’t resist being a dick about disabled people on unemployment benefits, too.
Whilst talking about youth unemployment, he segwayed into those who’d been found unfit for work. Or as the Labour-run DWP have rebranded it, those who receive the Universal Credit health element, yknow, for their poor health.
DWP demonising young disabled people, again
McFadden said:
A young person under 25 on the health element of Universal Credit is now less likely to get a job than someone over 55 on the same benefit.
Think about that in terms of the long-term consequences for people’s lives.
A 20-year-old on incapacity benefit is more likely to turn thirty and still be claiming than to have held a steady job for a year.
Around 65% of 20-year-olds claiming incapacity benefits 10 years ago are still claiming them today.
And perhaps worst of all, a young unemployed person is over 70% more likely to die prematurely than their peers.
To be clear, he’s talking about disabled people here. He’s not talking about people choosing not to work, but those who are either too sick to or would find working too challenging in the ableist society we live in.
The 20-year-old is less likely to get a job because they can’t work. The reason people are still claiming the benefit 10 years later is that they are still as, or even more, disabled than they were 10 years ago. Anybody too sick to work shouldn’t be expected to “have held a steady job”.
And to bring in the death rate is just absurd from a department that’s responsible for god knows how many disabled people’s deaths.
Spin as always
He carried on:
All of this should tell us that this debate cannot simply be concerned with monthly income levels. It has to be about opportunity and chances in life.
The question we should ask is not just “what are you entitled to” but “how do we help you change your life.”
Our ambition should be to empower people to change their story.
This, of course, is bullshit because both questions should come into play. But only in the respect of how the DWP can support disabled people, not force them into work.
What follows next is a spectacular crash course in subtly saying too many are claiming benefits who shouldn’t be, whilst making it sound like you want to help them all:
The OBR forecast is for over 2m more people to come on to long term sickness and disability benefits over the coming years. The variety of conditions has widened. There are more young people with long term health conditions. And we have an old system dealing with new circumstances.
I recently spoke to the Timms Review steering group and met with Alan Milburn.
My message to both was the same: take this chance to advocate radical and powerful change. Enable people to change their lives. Develop a system for the conditions we see today not those of yesteryear. Always remember our obligations to support those who need it and put empowerment and work at the heart of your reports.
The levels of bullshit are off the charts. In one breath, he’s saying conditions have changed and must be accounted for, and then at the same time, that the “change” will be forcing these people into work. Whilst making it sound like they just want to support and help disabled people.
Both of the reports McFadden mentioned are actively working to make it harder for disabled people to claim benefits. The Timms review comes after PIP cuts to make it harder to qualify were squashed by campaigners and MPs. The Milburn review will basically find ways to force kids into work. Milburn previously authored a report that called for the DWP to cut benefits except for those with ‘severe disabilities’.
DWP talking about those who can’t work, when they decide who can’t work
It’s all well and good to say, ‘always remember our obligations to support those who need it’. But when you finish that sentence with ‘and put empowerment and work at the heart of your reports, ‘ you’re making it very clear that only the people you deem to be disabled enough will get support.
Because that’s what needs to be remembered here, it’s not medical professionals who are deciding who can and can’t work because of their health. But a corrupt system whose main aim is to save money.
To claim you will support those who can’t work when you get to decide who fits that ever narrowing criterion is beyond cruel.
Featured image via the Canary
Travelodge has finally mandated ID checks for all replacement room keys this week. The policy change comes after widespread outrage over over the sexual assault of a solo female guest. As the Canary reported previously:
a woman was sexually assaulted after making a solo booking at the hotel – only for staff to give her attacker a key to her room. The perpetrator of the sexual assault, Kyran Smith, told staff he was her boyfriend and needed another key card. Despite not being present on the booking, the hotel gave him that key which enabled his abuse.
The budget hotel chain only implemented the security overhaul after a survivor and 100 MPs shamed the brand for its safeguarding failures.
A woman was sexually assaulted in a Travelodge. Staff gave her attacker the key to her room after he pretended to be her boyfriend. She was offered £30 in compensation. Appalling.
Along with 100 Labour colleagues, I’ve written to Travelodge’s CEO & asked to meet. pic.twitter.com/1pxjVqZvn3
— Anneliese Midgley MP (@anneliese_midge) March 8, 2026
Travelodge put profit before basic safety
Smith is now serving 7.5 years in prison, but is that really the end of the story? No, not when the hotel’s role in this assault remains a point of national outrage:
‘How can you be sure if you are a woman and you’re going to stay at one of their hotels that you will be safe?’
Labour MP Jen Craft told #BBCBrealfast more than 100 MPs have demanded a meeting with the boss of Travelodge after a woman was sexually assaulted in her hotel bed by a… pic.twitter.com/MZqztwW5dd
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) March 9, 2026
The company’s new policy finally requires staff to verify the identity of anyone asking for a room key. This is either going to be through the booking reference, or through direct contact with the person within the room. Travelodge have also claimed to have “intensified” staff training on safeguarding processes across their UK hotels. But we need to ask why it took a life-changing trauma and a fucking PR nightmare for a huge corporation to implement the most basic level of security? Guest safety should be a fundamental right, not a reactive damage-control measure.
The measly cost of human trauma
Travelodge’s initial response to this fuck up was a measly £30 voucher offered to the survivor. Literally just a refund on the cost of staying the evening. That’s it. They treated a brutal sexual assault like a minor customer service complaint, or a shitty cold breakfast. The company since admitted this offer was “inappropriate” and guest safety is now their “priority”.
How the hell was it not before? If safety were a priority, they would never have facilitated the invasion of what should have been a private room.
Over 100 MPs co-signed a letter to the CEO demanding immediate accountability. Anneliese Midgley said the chain played an “intrinsic role” in the abuse. The survivor herself has been the driving force for these changes stating:
I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. It’s not just about me, it’s about making sure hotels are safe for everyone.
Corporate greed consistently prioritises the ease of check-in over human life. A shitty £30 voucher shows exactly how the corporation quantifies the trauma of women. It reflects a disgusting culture where corporate liability and profit margins matter more than people. They only move when the political and public pressure becomes a threat to their profit margins.
Industry standards are no excuse for rape
Travelodge initially tried to hide behind the claim this it followed ‘industry standard security procedures’. This suggests the entire budget hotel industry is currently failing to protect women. All of them. We cannot allow “standard procedure” to be used as an excuse for corporate negligence. Travelodge’s chief executive Jo Boyden stated on:
We have done an internal review of our room access security policies and have made some immediate changes to ensure that an additional or replacement room key is only issued with explicit permission from the person, or people, staying in the room.
This has been rolled out to all of our hotels, supported by training for our 12,000 customer-facing colleagues.
The CEO went on to say that safety of guests was the most important thing and that the company has commissioned an independent review of its room security measures. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner Eleanor Lyons called this case a “stark reminder” that criminals exploit “weaknesses in hotel security”.
‘They offered me a complimentary breakfast, it was nothing in comparison to the trauma and fear’
As MPs meet Travelodge over concerns about security, Emma Jackson told #BBCBreakfast about a recent ‘frightening’ experience a stranger used a key card to enter her hotel room, as… pic.twitter.com/Eg3VPWdpMe
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) March 14, 2026
As the Canary reported, sexual offenses increased 511% in the last 20 years. In 2024 alone 71,227 rapes were recorded by police and yet only 2.7% of them resulted in charge. Politicians are right to demand total transparency from the board regarding these new training modules. We need to see a complete overhaul of how hotel security functions. Now.
Women should not have to live in fear for their lives in a room they have paid for. The fact a man can simply lay claim to a woman’s personal space is sickening.
Will Travelodge actually change it’s internal culture, or is this more corporate window dressing? We will not feel safe until we see these policies enforced by law across the entire sector.
Featured image via Travelodge.com
Israeli terrorists euphemistically known as ‘settlers’ invaded and terrorised a West Bank village on Sunday 15 March 2026. The ethno-supremacist land thieves attacked Khirbet Humsa, rounded up families and then beat and sexually assaulted children and women in front of their bound families and neighbours. A father was also “severely” sexually assaulted and beaten in front of his family.
Once they were done, the settlers pretended to pour petrol over their victims, terrifying them that they would suffer the same fate as a horrifically-burned Palestinian youth in Ramallah a day earlier.
During the hour-long attack, the ‘settlers’ stripped and beat children, particularly girls, in front of their children and threatened to kill them and rape the families’ women. The invaders also assaulted two women, one Portuguese and one from the US, who were in the village as human rights activists. The father who was sexually attacked was bound, stripped and beaten before the terrorists attacked his genitals with clubs.
As the Canary’s Charlie Jaay reported from the West Bank:
The settlers also blindfolded activists, beat up one Palestinian man with rocks, and sexually assaulted another person. Activists were asked if they wanted their fingers cut and their rings were stolen as well as their passports, phones and money.
After the attack, because the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) blocked their access to the property, it took three hours for the first ambulance to arrive for the injured.
Israeli atrocities
The UK’s ‘mainstream’ media have completely ignored the attack – but Israeli paper Haaretz published details. One young woman told the paper:
I woke up to the settlers’ shouts. They slapped me and dragged us outside, bound us, tore off my head covering, and ripped some of my clothes. They pulled the girls out and beat them, even the little ones. They mocked us and celebrated our humiliation.
A 74-year-old victim said:
Three of them beat me hard on the head, hands and stomach. The other smashed the security cameras, the router and the lights. I started to lose consciousness.
They poured water on me, and during this time one settler stole the watch from my hand. I was sure they were going to rape me
Another, unable to walk unaided after the attack and still bearing marks from bindings, was slashed with a knife:
They came to my home, and I tried to escape, but they caught me. They cut me with a knife above the wrist and bound my hands and feet with a zip tie. They poured cold water on us and threw us to the ground while we were bound, then piled us on top of each other inside the structure, men, women and children.
The US human rights activist said:
I woke up… to my friend screaming at us to get up before immediately being swarmed and trapped in the tent by about six masked Israeli settlers armed with heavy wooden sticks. They immediately beat the three of us to the ground, smashing our faces with their fists and clubs. They zip-tied our hands and feet and were yelling things like, ‘We are going to kill you!’
Others ransacked our bags, stealing our wallets and passports. One asked me for my phone, and every time I said I didn’t know where it was – because the whole tent was a mess and I couldn’t move – he hit me in the face.
Sexual assault
She also confirmed the sexual assault on the male victim, who asked the paper not to share full details of what the terrorists had done to him:
They pulled down the Palestinian man’s pants, poured water all over him and brutally beat him into the dirt. All he could do was curl into a fetal position and scream when they beat him with their clubs. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.
They kept hitting and kicking all of us, but the Palestinians were receiving the most brutal blows. I lay there shaking, with my hands over my face to protect my face. [One elderly victim] was curled up in the fetal position, zip-tied, with a bleeding gash on his swollen cheek. He looked unconscious. In a whisper you could hear the kids praying. It was one of the few things that pulled me through the horror.
They screamed at us to remove our rings, saying, ‘I will break your fingers if you don’t take them off faster,’ and they kept hitting my face while I struggled to remove mine with my hands zip-tied. Every so often they asked our names and where we were from.
At first I thought [the water they poured over us] was gasoline, and the thought of being burned alive in the tent with the Palestinian family flooded my mind. Someone ripped my jacket open with a knife, aggressively cutting from my left armpit to my hip. One settler started messing with my belt, and I screamed because I thought they were going to rape me.
One of the ‘settlers’ did not even bother to mask his face. One Palestinian victim said:
He spoke in Arabic [in front of everyone including the children] and threatened that we should leave. Otherwise they would return, burn the houses, kill the children, and rape the women.
At least six people were hospitalised by the attack. After the attackers left with the village’s livestock, Israeli soldiers arrived and prevented the village’s men pursuing them:
When the army arrived, they detained us. That gave the settlers time to get away with the herd. About an hour and a half later an ambulance arrived. The army detained us so the healthy men couldn’t pursue the settlers.
Routine violence
‘Settlers’ have murdered eleven Palestinians in the West Bank since Israel began its illegal war on Iran. In 2025, the racist mobs murdered 240 people in the West Bank, including 55 children. Sexual violence by Israeli settlers and military against their Palestinian victims is common. Thousands held without charge in Israeli torture camps face daily beatings and sexual torture.
The Israeli regime is currently ignoring well over 2,000 extradition requests for alleged and convicted paedophiles. In April 2025 Shoshana Strook, the daughter of Israel’s far-right settlements minister fled to police and asked them to protect her, accusing both her parents and one of her brothers of raping her as a child, over a period of years, and filming the rapes.
Strook was found dead at her home on Sunday 15 March, a couple of days after appointing a lawyer to pursue justice. The authorities claim she died by suicide, but Strook had posted shortly before her death that:
If they tell you I committed suicide, don’t believe it. If they tell you I was involved in an accident, don’t believe it.
Israeli psychotherapist and trauma expert Dr Anat Gur, head of the Bar-Ilan University trauma therapy program, has said that she believes organised child rape in Israel is widespread:
Organized child rape is one of the most horrific things I’ve encountered. It’s likely much more widespread than we think. It’s happening in places we least expect.
Featured image via the Canary
US ‘secretary of war’ Pete Hegseth has self-owned – and self-humiliated – in an abject, whining rant at the US press corps.
Hegseth’s frustration has clearly been growing at the failure of the US to subdue the Iranian government or prevent its heavy retaliation on US bases and Israeli military and intelligence installations. So he lashed out at the media, claiming that criticising him and his boss is the same as insulting US military service people.
The man often called ‘Kegseth’ for his alleged public inebriation, a torture fan who bears a white supremacist tattoo, did spend time in the US military before becoming a TV presenter and then ‘war’ dude. However, it’s very doubtful that he knows anything about flying a jet for 36 hours, beyond hoping to use it to beat reporters with.
If he wasn’t sending soldiers, sailors and air personnel to mass murder schoolgirls, risk death themselves and put the whole world in danger on behalf of the Epstein cartel, his performance would be funny:
But his boss is targeting journalists too. Trump has suggested that media reports of US failure and Iranian resistance are treason and should be punishable by death. Meanwhile the CIA is reportedly preparing a criminal case against right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson for daring to speak to Iranians before Trump’s “Operation Epstein Distraction“.
Featured image via the Canary
The UK government is rolling out an AI-empowered predictive policing system to predict the “likelihood” of criminal offences among adolescents. Open Rights Group is warning of the risks and limitations of using AI to determine the “most likely offenders.”
In conversation with the Canary, Mariano delli Santi of Open Rights Group explained that these systems are likely to single out children in care and alert authorities to targeted interventions. This means so-called predictive data models will be used to target vulnerable children.
AI is racist because it mimics society
Delli Santi said:
They say they want to help, that they will use this system to target children who are at risk of criminality, with support and therefore to prevent them from becoming criminals. However the way artificial intelligence and predictive policing works, tells us that this may not be everything in this story.
These systems will inevitably reflect society’s prejudices and stereotypes, making them inherently racist and classist, revealing problematic outcomes of predictive policing in practice.
The system, delli Santi explains, risks reproducing:
bias and stereotypes at scale. Black people, migrant people, poor people, people from geographic areas which have been historically over policed are more likely to be identified as at risk of committing a crime.
AI, as we’ve all come to discover, is massively racist. As the Canary has previously reported, 4/5 of people misidentified by facial recognition are Black.
Harvesting NHS data
Beyond bias, the unethical sourcing of data is another concern delli Santi identifies. The government wants to pull data from the NHS, police, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and the Department for Education. So anything you tell your doctor could be used to box children into the ‘future criminal’ category. Consequently, AI-driven predictive policing may use NHS records for risk calculation.
Commenting on this Delli Santi tells the Canary:
When you go to your doctor, you expect to be able to tell them what you need to tell them, in order to receive medical treatment and you trust them to not use this data in a way that you will not expect.
If however the government starts to grab data from your general practitioner from your schools…in order to predict whether your child is going to commit a crime or not, this relationship of trust is going to be broken. People will go to their doctor and will have less trust and will think more carefully about what they’re going to disclose and reveal to them or not.
His warning is clear:
Predictive policing is a dangerous thing that has no place in a democratic society.
The government are hellbent on pushing through this policy which will criminalise your kids. However, Open Rights Group is campaigning to introduce a ban on predictive policing. You can join the campaign here.
Featured image via the Canary
Donald Trump has claimed it’s a “little unfair” that a predominantly brown, Muslim country has decided to actually fight back against US colonialism.
The US and Israel started the war in Iran with illegal and unprovoked attacks. Yet now, it seems that shit got a little too real for him.
I AM LOST FOR WORDS…
“It’s Little Unfair” of Iran to Fight Back.
-Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/S3dm4fvw9M— Earth Hippy 🌎🕊️💚 (@hippyygoat) March 16, 2026
You had no right to bomb and murder nearly 200 little girls in the name of freeing Iranian women. I guess if they don’t reach adulthood, they can’t be “oppressed by the regime”.
“They have no right to be doing what they’re doing” is a crazy statement when you attack someone. https://t.co/ApHFP5jObI
— Gissur Simonarson (@GissiSim) March 17, 2026
Who’s going to bomb the US to free all the women that Trump’s regime is subjugating?
Bro got too used to attacking children and unarmed populations in open air prisons. Cant cope when someone can fight back https://t.co/eP03qQMI20
— Bajii (@bajiipliss) March 17, 2026
This is the type of video you watch four times just to make sure you’re not losing your mind.
The reality is, the president of the most powerful country in the world does not give a shit about Black and Brown people.
I guess Trump and his paedo friends are not used to people fighting back.
Trump: old habits die hard
And in a rare moment of lucidity, Trump admitted he went to war with Iran “out of habit”.
He added that Israel is a great ally, which, of course, is another reason the US should start an illegal war. Israel says jump and Trump asks how high.
Unreal. Trump says he went to war with Iran “out of habit,” adding “which is not a good thing to do.”
Rare moment of lucidity, I guess 😏pic.twitter.com/sniR2htmpJ
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) March 17, 2026
Imagine bombing school children out of habit? Does he have the same excuse for hanging out with Epstein for all those years?
Trump also talked about “violent and vicious people” who have “destroyed the country. At least bro is self-aware.
“violent and vicious,” “horrible people” who have “destroyed the country.”
Every accusation is a confession. https://t.co/8SQkwiJm7d
— David Marsden (@DvdMrsdn) March 17, 2026
This is the same guy who tried to insult Governor Gavin Newsom’s intelligence, whilst accidentally calling him the “President of the United States”.
US colonialism
Countries, including occupied territories (ahem, Gaza, the Golan Heights, Southern Lebanon), have the right to self-defence under international law.
Article 51 of the United Nations Charter establishes the right to self-defence as a “fundamental exception to the prohibition on the use of force between states”. Specifically, armed attacks justify recourse to self-defence.
The US has the strongest military in the world and Israel is the only state (albeit illegal) in the Middle East with nuclear weapons. Iran has neither of these, which is why the way it fights back may not make sense through conventional frameworks.
As Dr Narges Bajoghli wrote on Instagram:
Iran is targeting Gulf security architecture. For decades, the U.S. built a regional order where Gulf states host American bases, buy American weapons, and maintain stability that keeps oil flowing on U.S. terms.
Iran’s strategy dismantles that.Strike the infrastructure. Make the bases vulnerable. Force Gulf states to question whether American security guarantees are worth the risk of being Iranian targets. Fracture the regional consensus that enabled U.S. dominance.
She added:
So they’re turning that weapon back on the global economy. Threaten shipping lanes. Target refineries in allied states.
Make oil prices spike. Create economic pain that translates to political pressure on governments waging war.
Iran is hitting the US, Israel, and countries in which the US has military bases or infrastructure, where it hurts, and Trump underestimated their willingness to do so.
Maybe if more countries fought back against the US and Israel, the world would be less fucked up.
Featured image via X/AF Post
The High Court has ruled that the Dartmoor Commoners’ Council (DCC) has mismanaged Dartmoor commons. DCC did nothing to assess or prevent overgrazing, resulting in the deterioration of important wildlife areas.
Environmental campaign group Wild Justice brought the claim. It argued that DCC had failed to meet its legal responsibilities towards the conservation of the commons.
The High Court judgment on 17 March ruled that DCC has failed in its legal duty under the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 to assess the number of animals which should be allowed to graze on Dartmoor.
Dartmoor commons is an open area of land which covers more than two-thirds of Dartmoor National Park, spanning just under 36,000 hectares.
The Dartmoor Commons Act grants certain rights over the land to some 850 landowners, known as ‘commoners’. These include grazing rights and the rights to keep sheep, cattle and ponies.
Monitoring overgrazing on Dartmoor
The Dartmoor Commons Act also contains statutory responsibilities that DCC has to ensure the conservation of the commons. Wild Justice argued DCC failed to meet these responsibilities, alongside general duties under wildlife laws and regulations.
In a July 2025 High Court hearing, Wild Justice successfully argued that DCC failed to make periodic assessments of whether Dartmoor was becoming overstocked. This contravened section 4 of the Dartmoor Commons Act.
In his judgment, Justice Mould found:
Assessment of the number of animals that may properly be depastured on the commons at any given time necessarily implies both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The question for the Defendant is whether stocking levels exceed the capacity of the commons properly to accommodate them.
In order to address that question, among the matters which the Defendant needs to interrogate are the numbers of livestock which commoners are entitled to depasture on the commons, the numbers that are actually depastured in reliance on rights of common, the areas of common in respect of which those rights are enjoyed and exercised, seasonal variations, and so on.
In 2023, the government published an assessment of Dartmoor commons (the Fursdon Review). It found that Dartmoor was “not in a good state”.
In assessing a number of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) on the commons, the Fursdon Review found that many of them were in unfavourable condition. It also noted that Natural England had identified reducing stock numbers as a way to tackle overgrazing and return these areas to a more favourable condition.
Wild Justice began its legal claim in July 2024, when the group sent a pre-action protocol to DCC. It detailed alleged issues with DCC’s management of the commons, citing the Fursdon Review.
From DCC’s response it was clear that it had not taken any steps to control livestock. This led to Wild Justice filing a judicial review challenge in August 2024.
In February 2025, the challenge got the green light to proceed to the High Court, with two further grounds gaining permission in April.
Bob Elliot, CEO of Wild Justice, said:
This judgment shows that the Dartmoor Commoners’ Council failed to do the most basic of work needed in order to understand how many animals the Dartmoor Commons can sustain. When such an important landscape is already in very poor ecological condition, this simply isn’t good enough.
The Dartmoor Commoners’ Council must now carry out the proper assessment required by law and ensure that Dartmoor is managed in a way that allows nature to recover. We will be scrutinising that assessment and, importantly, how DCC acts upon it in areas where overgrazing is apparent.
Senior environmental solicitor Carol Day, of Leigh Day, was a member of the legal team representing Wild Justice. She said:
Wild Justice is obviously pleased that the judge has found that Dartmoor Commoners’ Council has failed in its statutory duty to properly assess the number of livestock grazing on Dartmoor. It has been clear for years that overgrazing is one of the major issues leading to the ecological decline of Dartmoor’s important wildlife habitats.
Wild Justice ‘s legal challenge means the DCC must now comply with its minimum legal duties as the regulator of grazing levels on the commons. The DCC must now urgently carry out a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the number of livestock on the commons so that it can consider whether it must take steps to reduce that number.
Featured image via the Canary
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